Hello. I think this might be the most varied Mod News yet. Look, there’s only one mention of a Half-Life 2 mod, and it doesn’t even have guns in it! Read on to find out what happenings have been happening in mod news this week.NEWS

STALKER: Way of the Wolf has been announced. It’s a total conversion for Call of Pripyat, which makes it the first of its kind. The mod takes place before the events of Clear Sky – which I believe means it’s a precursor to the entire Stalker story so far. As well as the new storyline, there’ll be improved NPC behaviour and AI, as well as a graphics overhaul.

Then there’s Doom III mod Weatherman, which is nearing its Valentine’s Day release. This is a student project from Germany, a platformer in which you must use your weather-changing abilities to overcome a selection of environmental obstacles. It’s a smart idea, and something I’m really looking forward to playing. New screenshots are here.

Battlefield 2 mod Forgotten Hope 2 is to see an update soon, and the team has released a bunch of media by way of a teaser. There’s a wallpaper pack, some pictures of tanks, some pictures of snow and some pictures of grass and roads. Which is all you could ever want from a media pack, surely. The next update will be out at some unspecified point in the future.

And then there’s this, which Alec mentioned yesterday but might as well be lumped in here too: a StarCraft MMO mod has been announced. Will the powers that be allow this to continue existing? Who knows? Lots more details in Alec’s post, either way. By which I mean the blog post that he wrote, not that I’ve been rummaging through his mail.

Finally, there’s a big update on Shift, the Half-Life 2 mod about driving cars. This has been in development since – according to my calculations – circa 486BC, and still shows no signs of an imminent release. But there is a cinematic concept trailer, which is embedded below.

RELEASES
Vikings are undeniably awesome, which is why news of a new Mount and Blade: Warband mod about them caught my eye. With new game modes (including longboat battles! Oh my!) and obviously lots of new maps and suchlike, it looks pretty awesome – though I’ve not had the chance to have a go myself. Get it on the TaleWorlds forum. I’d be curious to hear from people if this is any good.

UPDATES
Kingdoms Collide has hit its ‘final’ 1.0 version. I put that in inverted commas as they’re apparently already planning the next update, which will feature a whole new game mode. And presumably more bug fixes, given that players are still reporting a fair bit of glitchiness. For now, this is the completest edition you’re going to get. Grab it from ModDB or Desura.

Meanwhile, an add-on for the Call of Pripyat AtmosFear mod has been released. Absolute Nature 2 is a texture pack that aims to improve the visual quality of the game. It also allows you to select from five preset styles for each area, subtly changing the look of the world. A nice idea, available to download from ModDB.

And oh good heavens, I missed this a couple of weeks back. The Dark Mod, that delightful Doom III toolkit that allows you to effectively turn the game into Thief, has received an update. Now on version 1.3, the mod’s latest update includes a graphics overhaul, various code changes, new female AI and some new models, among other stuff. You can get the latest version, as you might expect, from ModDB.

I’d be interested to see how Blizzard shuts down the SC2 MMO attempt if they decide to do that though. They provided the mod tools after all, and bragged about the variety of game styles you could make with them.

I count 2 Half-Life 2 mods in the post, Shift and Kingdoms Collide, though you cleverly disguised it by not mentioning the Half-Life 2-ness of Kingdoms Collide. And they both don’t feature guns I guess.